


never shall sun that morrow see

by Mythopoeia



Series: All That Glitters: Gold Rush!AU [74]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (And . . . Yes this is a companion fic to Number 36 in our Series), (If you skipped that one you definitely want to skip this one too), 1850s Feanorians AU, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, And Thuringwethil’s Mind is Not A Healthy Place, Angband, Because . . . Well you will see I guess, Blood, Disturbing Themes, Dubious Consent, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Gold Rush AU, Implied Sexual Content, JUST GO BACK AND READ THE CEILI FIC INSTEAD IT WAS LiKE NUMBER 30 IN THE SERIES, Maedhros Deserves Better, Might as well also tag this as, More of . . . Thur is a Vampire, Ugh why did I volunteer to write This One, mature themes, so just, thanks tolkien, that, this is not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-04 20:45:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18820399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mythopoeia/pseuds/Mythopoeia
Summary: Bauglir’s emissary rides south bearing two tokens: a sealed letter, and a single lock of red hair.





	never shall sun that morrow see

_There comes at last an evening when a boy enters the saloon she hunts in, a boy who does not look like a thing hunted at all. He ducks his head a little as he steps across the threshold, pushing the door open with one languid hand; when he straightens he is the tallest man in the room by at least half a head, and also by far the youngest. There is an unusual, long-barreled gun holstered at his hip and a knife she knows is hidden in his battered left boot, but he laughs because of something one of his two companions says, and any tension that might be in him is well-hidden behind that pretense of frivolity and the fact that he seems already a little drunk. She knows there is no other drinking house in this entire fetid trap of a town, but his face is a little flushed, and when he straightens he is slightly unsteady, shaking his hair back to disguise his stagger._

_(“The Irishman’s son asks for information,” her spies have written to her from a long line of frontier towns, and increasingly of late: “he asks also for whatever will get him drunk quickest.”)_

_A test: when he settles at a crooked table with his companions—casually choosing to toss his long coat over the back of the chair that gives him best view of the door—she summons one of her girls with a gesture and has her serve him the strongest whiskey they have. He drinks it like water, and orders another, with a smile that she would think flirtatious if she did not know better._

_His companions eat heartily, drink heartily, and laugh heartily. He drinks, but the meat on his plate grows cold, untouched, and he eats scarcely any of the bread that accompanies it, instead breaking it into crumbs with nervous fingers while he talks and laughs. It is the only sign of nerves she can find: the way his fingers do not stop moving. And this is the only sign that he is here on a hunt of his own: the way his gaze also, is restless, cataloguing the room and the people in it. Twice, he glances her way, but does not seem to notice her, and she finds she quite likes the feeling, for now._

_She sits patiently in her corner, and studies him at her leisure as he fidgets and smiles and does not eat._

_He is as pleasant to look at as her spies had reported, with a strange, arresting beauty made all the more striking by his height and the Irish brogue that occasionally softens the edges of his society accent, a way of speaking he undoubtedly has learned from his arrogant father. His beauty is a woman’s beauty, in truth, but in a man’s cast: large, expressive grey eyes, a wide, clear brow beneath the tousled fall of his bright hair, his mouth firm but tilted slightly to wryness, jawline sharp above his slim throat._

_(He tips his head back, to drink; despite all her patience her hands twitch, seeing his throat so exposed.)_

_His name, she knows, is Maedhros. He is twenty-three years old. He has killed at least eight men, since he left New York, and he has cried over it, when he thinks no one can see him. His brothers call him Maitimo, because that was his mother’s favorite name for him since he was small. He loves his brothers. He loves his father most of all._

_His father has sent him to hunt her down; has sent him to her like a gift, too young and too desperate and too beautiful._

_Thuringwethil watches him drink, and watches him breathe, and waits._

*

Thuringwethil takes a horse from one of the hidden waypoints Bauglir keeps at the base of the mountain, and rides south. She goes alone, with no men to guard her, because it pleases her to be alone; in her saddlebag is a letter she wrote and blotted at her own room in Angband, and in the purse she wears on a cord around her neck she carries a lock of red hair.

(The first time she pauses on her way, to rest the horse and drink from the water she brought, she slips that trophy from its purse and lets it fall, flame-bright and flame-soft, into the palm of her hand. Before she departed Angband—before she wrote the letter—she tied one end with thin cord, to hold the strands together. She rubs those strands thoughtfully between her fingertips as she drinks, those hairs as fine as a child’s first curls, and recalls how his face had changed, when he recognized her.) 

She left Annatar in a black mood, at the very doors of Angband. He had been loath to let her go without a private word, and would have had her take at least one orc rider as protection, if she would not take him. But Mairon self-named Annatar is a foolish man who, if Gothmog is to be believed, was nearly killed by Maedhros Feanorian, in a fair fight, blade to blade and strength to strength. The thought amuses her, so that she laughs a little as she stows her water and remounts to guide her raw-boned steed along the hidden paths, down into the thicker forest where the river shall lead her easily to more well-traveled roads. 

Mairon will fret and sulk, but Thuringwethil needs no guard, because she is older than he is, and cleverer than he is, and the fights she chooses are never fair. There is black poison on the dagger at her waist, and clear poison in the flask at her hip. In the shabby upstairs room in Beleriand, there had been a different kind of poison on the rag at her breast, and oh how Feanor’s son had looked at her, when she pressed it over his nose and mouth!

(Oh how he had looked, and breathed, and breathed.)

She had trapped him beneath her then, and Gothmog says he trapped Mairon beneath him, the day he was taken, and selfishly she wishes that was a thing that she had seen: Maedhros the fighter.

Time enough for that, she reminds herself as she turns onto the main road leading south, to the town nearest to hateful Mithrim. After all, he is Bauglir’s now.

Bauglir will make him fight.

*

_The Irishman’s son, when he sees her at last, betrays nothing except a slight hesitation, and he worries his lower lip between his teeth briefly before he says something to his companions and pushes his chair back from the card table where he has been winning for the last hour. He stands no more unsteadily than he had been when he arrived, despite how he has been drinking, and one of his companions chuckles, shaking his head in mock-envy. The boy flushes a little darker, but he does not look ashamed, as he gathers up the gold he has earned and pours it into his purse._

_He draws on his coat—curious, that he should cover himself as he goes to seek out a whore—and then across the smoky common room he looks directly at her, and she meets that grey-bright gaze, smiles, and finishes her own drink. When he starts moving towards her, she stands, and retreats to the shadows of the back stairwell, feeling the hidden bottle at her hip, and the quickening heat of her heartbeat, giddy as a girl’s._

_She knows without looking that he is following._

*

She reaches the town a little before sunset, the long shadows turning her arms to wings as she dismounts in front of the tavern, tossing back her cloak. She does not trouble to hide her face; Mithrim may be nearer, but fear of Bauglir runs stronger here than any loyalty or love for Feanor and his sons. No one looks at her askance, though she be a woman traveling alone, with unbound hair and clothing too fine to be inconspicuous. In fact, people seem to be trying to avoid meeting her gaze, shrinking from her and bowing as she arranges the stabling of her horse, peeling the riding gloves from her hands as she speaks. Their fear entertains her, and were she on any other errand she might tarry a few days to seek her amusement. But this is not any other errand.

She left Annatar in a black temper, in Angband, but he is not the only trembling thing she left behind.

*

_He tells her he is looking for information on Melkor Bauglir. She weighs the purse in her hand—most of it gold, all of it won at the table while she was watching—and she smiles, because this is not what she was wanting, and if her spies were correct, it is not all he is offering, either._

_What will you give me, she asks, for this information?_

_Feanor’s beautiful son stares at her like he is gathering his will, bracing himself. He clearly thinks himself a tragedy, this bright-haired boy with the blood under his fingernails. The charm of it intrigues her; the ego he has, to think himself a story with meaning, instead of simply a man._

_Anything, he says with an easy smile, stepping close. She answers him with a kiss, wanting to feel his surprise; she does feel it, in the briefest tension, before he answers with open mouth, his eyes closed. She pulls back just far enough to keep their lips touching, watching his face. This close she can see the gold tips of his lashes, just as her spy in Red Creek had described them. His eyes do not open._

_Even this? She asks him, loving the way he cannot bear to look at her. His lips move against hers, his breaths quick and shallow, too shallow._

_Anything, he whispers, warm against her teeth, and she laughs, and takes his hand, and leads him to her room._

*

Thuringwethil keeps many spies in many towns, and here her girl’s name is Mollie. She waits only a few minutes in her private room above the bar, sipping at the warmed brandy she had ordered at her arrival, when there comes a sharp knocking at her door. Mollie scrambles into the room looking somewhat flustered and definitely disheveled, and her usually sun-dark face is pale as she drops into a deeply inelegant curtesy. She is trying not to tremble, but Thuringwethil knows she is afraid; all her spies fear her, more even than they fear Bauglir. 

“My apologies, mistress,” the girl gasps, staring at the rug beneath her feet. “I was entertaining.”

“No matter,” Thuringwethil replies, scarcely troubling to hide her amusement. “Now that you are here I have an errand for you. I am here on business for Master Bauglir; urgent business, that I must finish as quickly as possible. To do that, I need you to take a message to Mithrim.”

Mollie, who had been straightening up and finally daring to raise her eyes, blanches.

“Mithrim? So the rumor is true, then, that the Irishman is dead?”

“The rumor is true,” Thuringwethil confirms lightly, sipping at her drink. “So you are to deliver this letter to the eldest of his sons, do you understand? Demand to be taken to the eldest of Feanor’s sons, and tell him you have urgent news. And when you see him, give him this.”

She lifts the sealed letter from the vanity table, and hands it to her spy. The girl regards it doubtfully.

“They shan’t see me, in Mithrim,” she says. “They will think me nothing more than a harlot, there. What news could I possibly bring to the Irishman’s son, that he would think valuable enough to open the gates for?”

Thuringwethil laughs, and drains her cup, the glass clinking against her teeth.

“This,” she says, and draws the pouch on its cord from around her neck.

*

_You can tell me no, she assures him tenderly, as she moves against him, gasping, clawing against his skin. The cuts she opens are deep; he shudders, the strain of his breathing like a sob. She cuts him open again, and again, and again. He says nothing._

_Intrigued by his silence, she runs her fingers experimentally through his hair, coaxingly, and his lips part slightly, his teeth clenched shut. She strokes him gently along the side of his face, by the yet unbroken curve of his orbital bone, and his lips are parted, but his eyes are wild, and still he cannot make a sound. She wonders (not for the last time) if he knows he is a bad liar._

_Beautiful boy, she teases. Tell me you love me._

*

Thuringwethil takes her supper in her room, once Mollie has gone: red wine and boiled potatoes and real beef steak, sourced from Doriath’s ranches, of all places. She orders it cooked so lightly the blood seeps out beneath her knife, copper-sweet and animal-rich on her tongue. The wine does not compare to the vintage Bauglir imports, but it is still better than nothing; better than the poor gin she had to content herself with, in Beleriand, before Bauglir summoned her home. Her room here is much finer, also, furnished with a woven rug to warm the bare wooden floor, a vanity with a spotted mirror, and even a framed ink-drawing, on the wall, of a local landscape. Such is the difference between a guest room and a work room, she thinks, smirking; and the difference, too, between being forced to live in hiding as Zella the whore and being able to claim her position of power as Thuringwethil, Bauglir’s faithful servant. 

( _They will kill me_ , Mollie had whined, torn between two fears. Thuringwethil had beckoned her closer, and she had obeyed as though dragged there, and Thuringwethil had reached out to caress her spy’s delicate hands before dropping the precious token into her open palms. She had lingered over the empty, scarred knuckle where Mollie’s ring finger had been, before she swore service years ago, and the girl stiffened in something worse than fear, gaze flying despite herself to Thuringwethil’s knife, set primly upon the vanity beside the letter.

( _And what shall I do?_ Thuringwethil had asked, gently. 

(Mollie took the letter and the purse, and fled.)

There is a rug on the floor in this bedchamber, and there is even a quilt on the bed, cut from white and emerald green. How much prettier _he_ would have looked here, with his hair russet gold against the green and his blood against the white—

*

_Beautiful boy, she croons, running her hands through his hair. Everywhere she touches him, he shivers, yet he does not pull away._

_You can tell me no, she reminds him, if you like not our bargain, and the smile he returns her is devastating. A tragedy indeed, she thinks, seeing that smile. She wants to laugh, but instead she moves again, forcing his reaction, hands tightening in his hair, pulling._

_There is that pulse, frantic in his throat. He is frightened of her; he loathes her. She knows this easily, and is amused._

_And yet—_

_I love you, he tells her, and she does laugh, this time, and thinks she shall perhaps let this game go longer than she had planned for, after all._

*

Dawn arrives slowly.

Thuringwethil does not sleep; she wraps herself in her black cloak, arms folded sharp and tight about her body, and sits with her shoulder to the window, the side of her face cool against the glass pane. Outside the window there is only darkness, broken by the tiny flares of red firelight, pinprick-bright in the mirk. It is Mithrim’s wall-torches lit; Mithrim keeping its watch in the night, as she keeps her watch here. Somewhere behind those hidden walls, beneath those sparks of firelight, Feanor’s remaining sons wait restlessly, without realizing they are waiting. They too, are surely not sleeping tonight, and their waking thoughts are likely filled with memories of the same face she is thinking of. It is likely _he_ also, does not sleep tonight; she trusts Bauglir shall keep his prize’s beauty intact at least this far, for himself if not for her, but Annatar had been—very angry. 

If he ruins what is hers, while she is away on their master’s errand, then she shall be angry too.

For this is her task: To offer Maedhros back to his kin, in exchange for what Bauglir wants most: all that Feanor stole from him, in life, and hid from him, even in death. But what care has Thuringwethil, for the kind of prize her Master seeks? What value, in a diamond, compared to the blood in a man’s veins, to the life in a man’s eyes? 

She will deliver the terms to Maedhros’ foolish brothers, and she will see that they make the wrong choice. The second eldest, she knows, weeps easily; the third eldest is impatient; and the fourth eldest is a coward. 

She knows how to make them choose to abandon the brother they love best. 

*

_In the moment of her choosing, he goes still beneath her, and when she pulls the drug-damp cloth away he does not stir._

_In the moment of her choosing, she claims her mastery over what Bauglir desires, and the Irishman’s son does not fight back; too much a boy, yet, to understand defeat can come in many pieces, all of them ripped out and cut away, with nothing whole left behind._

_In the moment of her choosing, she sits back, surveying him in a thrilling, slow, silent pause that feels almost, almost like peace._

_He lies like a dead man, because he did not fight back._

_(That was his choice, not hers.)_

_In the moment of her choosing, she could make him_

_Into_

_Anything—_

*

In her bedchamber in Angband, on fine paper with Bauglir’s letterhead, she had written only five words:

_Eastern wall. Dawn. Come alone._

_Come alone_ , she wrote, but she knows that Maglor, weakest of Feanor’s sons, will not be able to keep his brothers from accompanying him to their parley. This, she allows. It will be a pleasure, to look upon all those child faces and see _his_ face in pieces, to have even the barest foretaste of what _his_ despair will look like, when she sees him next. 

*

_His blood tastes like any other blood._


End file.
